Rose of Old Harpeth eBook

“About a husband for you,” answered Stonie
in the reluctant voice that a man usually uses when
circumstances force him into taking a woman into his
business confidence. “Looked to me like
everybody here was a-going to marry everybody else
and leave you out, so I asked him to get you one up
in New York and I’d pay him for doing it.
He’s a-going to bring him here on the cars his
own self lest he get away before I get him.”
And the picture that rose in Rose Mary’s mind,
of the reluctant husband being dragged to her at the
end of a tether by Everett, cut off the sob instantly.

“What—­what did you—­he
say when you asked him about—­getting the
husband—­for you—­for me?”
asked Rose Mary in a perfect agony of mirth and embarrassment.

“Let me see,” said Stonie, and he paused
as he tried to repeat Everett’s exact words,
which had been spoken in a manner that had impressed
them on the General at the time. “He said
that you wasn’t a-going to have no husband but
the best kind if he had to kill him—­no,
he said that if he was to have to go dead hisself he
would come and bring him to me, when he got him good
enough for you by doing right and such.”

“Was that all?” asked Rose Mary with a
gurgle that was well nigh ecstatic, for through her
had shot a quiver of hope that set every pulse in
her body beating hot and strong, while her cheeks burned
in the cool linen of her pillow and her eyes fairly
glowed into the night.

“About all,” answered the General, beginning
to yawn with the interrupted slumber. “I
told him your children would have to mind me and Tobe
when we spoke to ’em. He kinder choked then
and said all right. Then we bear-hugged for keeps
until he comes again. I’m sleepy now!”

“Oh, Stonie, darling, thank you for waking up
and coming to comfort Rose Mamie,” she said,
and from its very fullness a happy little sob escaped
from her heart.

“I tell you, Rose Mamie,” said the General,
instantly, again sympathetically alarmed, “I’d
better come over in your bed and go to sleep.
You can put your head on my shoulder and if you cry,
getting me wet will wake me up to keep care of you
agin, ’cause I am so sleepy now if you was to
holler louder than Tucker Poteet I wouldn’t wake
up no more.” And suiting his actions to
his proposition the General stretched himself out
beside Rose Mary, buried his touseled head on her
pillow and presented a diminutive though sturdy little
shoulder, against which she instantly laid her soft
cheek.

“You scrouge just like the puppy,” was
his appreciative comment of her gentle nestling against
his little body. “Now I’m going to
sleep, but if praying to God don’t keep you
from crying, then wake me up,” and with this
generous and really heroic offer the General drifted
off again into the depths, into which he soon drew
Rose Mary with him, comforted by his faith and lulled
in his strong little arms.